Listening: Kids around Christmas Time

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I am in Christmas mode. My class already has a Christmas tree  decorated with white stars, some silver baubles  and not a trace of tinsel- I don’t like tinsel. Christmas carols  are already playing in my hi-fi and I am trying to figure out what to cook for Christmas Eve and Christmas day without ending up dead tired and falling asleep in the middle of the dinner.

So, fully into Christmas mode,  I have chosen these two clips from The Cosby Show  to help my intermediate students get into the mood  and  improve their listening skills, too 😉 Hope it serves both purposes!

I wish this show was still on air. For me, it is probably one of the best sitcoms ever  and the scenes with Olivia among my favourites.

 

What Race is Santa Claus?.  I would suggest playing the video once  without bothering with the listening task .Watch it on youtube here

Kids at Christmas Time. Again, I would suggest playing the video once  without bothering with the listening task. Watch it on youtube here

A Cue Prompter to Help Students Give their Speeches

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This year is slightly different for me since I don’t have as much time as the previous years to update my blog. This year I have found myself with a job to go to , a rural house to run and with no domestic help. I wasn’t sure I ‘d be able to post, if I’d have time or if I’d feel up to it and heck, I am still wondering where I find the time to do everything. But the thing is that here I am, still pumped to post.Today I want to share with you a little tool you might find useful .
This little tool is a cueprompter. My students need to, in two weeks’ time, give a speech of two minutes maximum and I find this little tool can help them a lot monitor the time it takes them to give their speech as it has adjustable speed feautures.
How to use it
♥Copy/paste the text into the prompter text window
♥You can set screen size, font size and colour
♥Start the prompter and adjust the speed
♥ Use the Space Bar to stop/start the cueprompter

Tutorial here

A word on Grammar:Prepositions after superlatives

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After superlatives, we normally use two prepositions of and in

♥ we use in with a singular word referring to a place or group

I am the happiest woman in the world

Mary is the fastest player in the team

♥we use of before plurals, before time periods such as year/month

She’s the fastest tennis player of them all

Saturday is the best day of the week

Test your knowledge

 

A word on Grammar: Old or Elder, Farther or Further

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Very often I have been asked this question in class. What’s the difference between Farther /ˈfɑː.ðər/  and Further  /ˈfɜː.ðər/ and between Older /əʊldə/ and Elder/ˈel.dər/?

♥ Farther /Further

– Distance: both  farther and further are used to talk about physical  distance . There is no difference between them.

 Ex :    Leon is further /farther away than Oviedo

– Additional: Further  is used  when we want to mean ” additional” ” extra” “more advanced”.

  Ex : For further information, see page 153.

 ♥Older/Elder

We use Elder when we want to talk about the order of birth of the members of a family . They are only used before nouns, ie, in attributive position

Compare:

My elder /older daughter has just found her first job

My sister is two years older than me

My eldest /oldest daughter has just found a job

Peter is the oldest student in his classroom

Now, fancy doing some practice?